Op/Ed

I was going to write about a fun feature that MLB will be doing for the All Star game this year – having fans vote for the four greatest players of each individual franchise, in addition to the four greatest living players, four greatest old time stars, and four greatest Negro League players. It was set to be a fun column.

It’s hard to believe how many people you get to know throughout your whole life. I mean like really get to know. They float through our vision like a love we may never feel or a flavor that remains unknown. We know they are present; always present. But once they cease to exist, we seem to long for them more than before. There’s an absence that’s hard to explain and yet it’s so obvious. We should have known all along. The lives and people we strive for seem apparent to the lucky ones. The rest of us are left wishing we had hoped just a little bit more once they’re gone.

The Addison Recorder is not a political blog. We talk about popular culture here, and how it affects us at large. We shy away from politics – it’s not our specialty by any means. With that being said, the recent events in Ferguson, MO, New York, Cleveland, etc. (too many to list, sadly) have transcended pure politics and instead have become a cultural movement, a moment of recognition of how people relate to one another in America. This is a national moment, a historical moment, and that’s what drove me to the streets of downtown Chicago on Thursday night (12/4/14) to protest the failure to indict the police officers responsible for the choke-hold death of Eric Garner. I was joined in this by Alex, Andrew, and over a thousand other outraged citizens. Surreal, exhilarating, at times terrifying, it was something that needed to be done.

We’ve all seen the announcements, major events reminiscent of Apple conventions, wherein the stuff of comic books are plotted out in their latest big screen adventures. This year, both Marvel and DC have declared (civil?) war upon movie screens and wallets across America. Over the next six years, there will be over 40 (!) superhero movies featuring the characters of the two comics publishers released, setting the tone for blockbusters for the immediate future to come. On the surface, this sounds exciting – there’s never been a better time to be a comic-book movie fan.

I know the best place in town to hear music and try literally dozens of beers, and it is not Taste of Chicago. Tonight, I checked out the Square Roots Festival in Lincoln Square, and it was awesome. The Square Roots Festival runs from Friday, July 11 through Sunday, July 13, and you (yes, you) should check it out. Despite getting there shortly after 8:00 p.m., music was pumping out of the north stage and there were hundreds of people in the street between Montrose and Wilson on Lincoln Ave. Most of the vendors were still open, including an amazing line up of food trucks, tents, and…oh, right, the beer: Fifteen primarily local breweries each with at least two of their lineup for you to try.

Most street festivals and art shows in Chicago put forth the same line up of art vendors, and this festival isn’t much different, save that a number of local vendors from Lincoln Square have tents offering their wares. A score of local restaurants have food stations lining the street, including Lincoln Square favorites Bistro Campagne, Fountainhead, Gather, and Cheesie’s Pub.

Music, however, is the biggest draw for the festival, proceeds from which will help support the Old Town School of Folk (full disclosure: I take guitar lessons at the school). Tonight, Joe Driscoll & Sekou Kouyate were creating amazing African/hip hop/reggae awesomeness (that’s a thing, right?) to a crowd of well over two hundred. They were followed by Ivan & Alyosha, a Seattle based group with a fantastic name (any other Literature geeks get the reference?), a remarkably upbeat folk band whose album I’ll be purchasing as soon as my bank account will allow. Tomorrow’s headliner is Bobby Bare, Jr’s Young Criminals Starvation League. You can check out “Valentine” on YouTube.

Folk and World Music bands aren’t the only acts getting stage time. Old Town offers a number of awesome music ensembles and classes. Sunday will feature their Brazilian Folk Ensemble with Paulinho Garcia (5:00-5:45 p.m); visitors can try out their African Dance (1:30 – 2:30 p.m) or Flamenco classes (2:45- 3:45 p.m), or just hang out and watch Aloft Circus Arts (8:00 – 8:30 p.m). If you want to catch up with Travis and me, you’ll find us in the 2nd Half Guitar Jam (1:30 – 2:15 p.m).

There’s always something to do on summer weekends in Chicago. There’s a street fest happening almost every weekend, and this weekend there’s Taste of Chicago to compete with as well. If you want over-crowded places with absurd food prices and too many tourists, go to Taste. If you want a chill atmosphere, great beers, and an amazing musical experience, then go to Square Roots.

Ever the history nerd, I was all too willing when my boyfriend suggested we watch ten-minute, “crash course” youtube videos on World History. The host was not the stereotypical, boring teacher from middle school who fixated on dates and the reigns of King X and Queen Y. No, John Green was a dude who was passionate about history.

Happy New Year everyone from the frozen tundra of Chiberia! (Which is in the running for the stupidest weather related names in history!)

It was a long and productive 2013 for the Addison Recorder staff. However, time marches on, and we’re approaching 2014 with several goals in mind to increase our reader’s enjoyment of our little culture blog out here in the wastes of Ice Station Lakeview. One of the biggest comments we’ve received (both internally and externally) is the irregularity of our postings. While it’s easy to offer up the excuse that we (the editors) are four busy people with busy lives, that’s little excuse in terms of maintaining a finger on the ever-shifting pulse of popular culture.

With this in mind, we’re starting 2014 by looking to significantly boost our productivity here at the Recorder. The first step we’ve taken to achieving this goal is to expand our staff of writers. When I first had the idea for this website back in 2012, I wanted to maintain a steady, significant presence on the Internet, posting updates on the hot button issues of our tempestuous modern culture. By adding writers, we hope to not only add to the number of subjects we’re observing/analyzing/critiquing, but to expand on our perspectives as well. (At our meeting, it was noted that we’ve got a solid collection of white males between the ages of 26-32 writing for the site…and very little else.)

On that note, it pleases me to welcome the newest additions to the Addison Recorder family: Karen Martin, Christopher Walsh, Christina Brandon, and Meryl Williams. You’ll get to know them over time as they begin to contribute articles of their own, and can already get a taste for Karen’s work with her review of Disney’s Frozen!

In addition to hiring new staff members, we’ve also got several other elements in the works:

J. and Andrew will be providing regular coverage of the 2014 Olympics, though the rest of us will be chiming in from time to time.

It’s almost Oscar season, which means it’s time for Alex’s head to implode once again! Keep track of that on the Recorder!

It’s only a few weeks until pitchers and catchers report, and Travis will be keeping track of all MLB action with newfound fervor this year!

The biggest thing to help grow the Recorder, though, is something that each of you, dear readers, can contribute to with relative ease: tell your friends about us! Spread the word of our musings to your family and coworkers! Tell us what you think about what we’re doing! It is our goal to provide you with the cultural commentary that you want, or that you need, or that you always needed but never knew you wanted, and the best way for us to do that is to know what you want/need. Feel free to comment away here, or on Facebook, or on Twitter, and we’ll look to provide you with the best content that we can.

The older I get and the more life experience I obtain, the more life imitates art…in rare cases the stories I imagine telling come true (more on that fifty years from now or when some of the principals are dead), but more specifically I see the ideas, hopes, and fears of past generations manifest in our reality. Above all, the work of Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) seems to be the most prescient.

There’s quite a lot that has to happen for me to truly mourn the passing of a celebrity, an artist, or a noteworthy figure in popular culture. Quite often, the problem for me is that “celebrity” naturally inspires a distance between myself and the noted member of society. It’s sad for me to realize that I’ll never read another Roger Ebert review, never get to listen to a new track by Levon Helm, or that Stan “the Man” Musial has joined the ranks of the great All-Star team in the sky. It’s natural to feel some sense of loss, and to gain a true appreciation for what they’ve done. (Check out my colleague’s touching tribute to the late Mr. Ebert here, to whom all of us at the Recorder are deeply indebted to.) More often than not, however, it’s only a momentary blip in the never-ending stream that is life. It’s sad to know that Whitney Houston has passed away, but in the end, I’ll still dance like a fool to “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” without thinking more on the subject than “hmm…she’s passed away…we’re all getting old.”

And then I came home from work today to discover that Ray Harryhausen has passed away.

Somebody like Harryhausen is not a well-recognized name in the general lexicon of popular culture. He didn’t discover a cure for a disease, he didn’t play quarterback for the Cowboys, and he never had a #1 Single on the Billboard Top 40. He did headline several movies of his own, but we’ll get to that in a second.

No, what he did was to provide hope, inspiration, and a wave of dreams for countless people the world over.

I had a violently angry article primed and ready to go for this afternoon here at the Recorder, one that discusses the eroding values of our culture that have been showcased over the last few weeks by the tragedies in Boston, one that snarls and might be the angriest thing I’ve ever written.

Then I went to work and turned on ESPN and heard about Jason Collins’ announcement that he is “a 34 year old center,[…] black, [and] gay.” In light of the significance of this announcement, yelling about Twitter, ignorance, and racial stereotyping in modern America seemed…well…petty.

I would like to lead off that we here at the Addison Recorder are proud of Jason Collins, that we respect and support him, and that we are especially glad to see that his decision to come out has been WIDELY EMBRACED by a litany of public figures, both within the sporting world and outside of with.

(I will also readily admit that I am not a big enough aficionado of the NBA to be able to identify who Jason Collins was. My first response when I heard that an athlete came out this morning was “Wow, that’s awesome!…..who does he play for?” Immediately followed by “What position? Center? Halfback? Are the Wizards even a team anymore?” Needless to say, I’m not proud of myself.)

The best thing about Collins’ coming out is that it was immediately usurped in the news by Tim Tebow being cut by the New York Jets.